Choosing Your Own Career Path: Mentees Explore the PR Industry

The CPRS Hamilton mentorship program held a communications career discussion on Nov. 3, 2016 at Burlington City Hall. The event’s goal was to create awareness about the different practice areas in the field of communications to help mentees determine their areas of interest and possible career paths.

This event allowed mentors to share highlights of their roles and personal experiences from an industry perspective. PR students and new practitioners had the opportunity to find out what working in different sectors is like, key skill sets needed to succeed, and to discover more about the day-to-day realities of senior communications professionals.

Mentors David Rowney (left) and Rick Mauro (right) discuss their experiences in the corporate sector.

Seasoned practitioners and mentors led informal roundtable discussions based on questions submitted by mentees. The mentors’ different areas of practice included: Corporate (Rick Mauro and David Rowney), Government (Janine Ivings), Education (Susan Emigh) and Agency/Freelance (Gordon Neufeld).

After a short introduction, mentors gave a brief explanation of what they do, and offered one word to summarize PR.

Janine Ivings: Flexibility

After working in municipal government for 16 years, Janine explains it’s important to balance work, life, and project priorities. Her small communications team of two means being both a strategist and tactician.

David Rowney: Educational

There is always something new to learn in a corporate environment. David has experience working in both small and large departments, and he looks for opportunities to learn new things. He has recently learned how to create videos.

Susan Emigh: Dynamic

Mentor Gordon Neufeld (left) discuses his professional experiences from the agency/freelance perspective.

Susan has a background in journalism and has worked for McMaster University for 14 years. Her role at McMaster is changing all the time and they have a wide range of exciting news because of their medical school and world-class research teams.

Gordon Neufeld: Curiosity

Gordon feels the primary criteria for being in the PR business is curiosity, and the desire to want to find out about everything.

Rick Mauro: Evolving(yet staying the same)

Rick says business and the way we’re communicating is evolving, however, we still need to think strategically about what is the most effective message. Although it’s simple and cost effective to communicate digitally, he stresses not to let the tool get in the way of the message.

Roundtable Discussions

During the open discussions mentees had an opportunity to ask questions of mentors. Here are a few highlights and tips for new practitioners:

What skill sets are required to be a PR professional?

Writing is fundamental

Social media is important, and is an expectation of the younger generation

Strong knowledge of a particular industry and the world around you

Be a team player

As a communicator, you need to be able to work and connect with people

A positive attitude and willingness to learn new things can demonstrate your value to an organization

Mentor Janine Ivings (left) shares her knowledge and experience from working in the government sector.

Be a life-long learner

Read newspapers and industry blogs

Sign up for weekly PR and social media news tips

Step out of your industry – get a broad view of what’s on the horizon

Network to connect with colleagues around best practices

Participate in professional development activities to increase skills in different areas

Gordon suggest clients buy a book they have never read before and then encourages them to think about their business in a different way. What are the commonalities? What did you learn?

Write the right content

To have an effective content management strategy, you need to understand what people want

Add value and be helpful

Provide how-to articles of interest to customers instead of pushing out key messages you want to get across

Tangerine and Pepsi do a good job on content management

PR is becoming more sponsored content with paid bloggers and promoted posts

It’s interesting to note in the Edelman Trust Barometer the trust factor of social media is going down due to the rise of more sponsored content

The corporate perspective

Rick prefers the less layers and bureaucracy in a corporate environment because he can get more things done

There may be good opportunities for young practitioners to grow professionally in smaller organizations that are expanding

Dave’s advice: Find a company with a good corporate culture that is quickly growing, and then ride that wave because they will be doing great things

Mentor Susan Emigh discusses her experiences at McMaster University so mentees can learn more about the educational sector.

PR skills needed in the educational sector

Writing skills and the ability to transform technical and scientific information to understandable language is very important

Professionals need to know what’s newsworthy, be good storytellers, and be strategic thinkers

Susan’s advice: Gain a variety of experience in different sectors, especially early on in your career

Try new things, gain life experience, and apply your skills to all areas of PR practice

Roxanne Torbiak was unable to attend the event, but answered questions about healthcare PR via email.

What challenges do you face interpreting medical information and communicating it to the general public?

The single biggest challenge is ensuring that a clear message is conveyed

This often means working with a healthcare professional to explain the information using easy to understand wording

Sharing real patient stories, using relatable analogies and/or graphics are the best ways to share a complex story

PR skills needed in the health care sector

In addition to writing and strategic planning, health care communicators need to have excellent emotional intelligence, especially the ability to work positively with a wide range of people with a wide variety of personality and leadership styles

Resourcefulness, the ability to work as part of a team, resilience to change and having the ability to be calm and rational in a crisis situation are especially important

CPRS Hamilton

The Canadian Public Relations Society, Hamilton is the voice for the professional development, promotion and recognition of professional public relations practitioners in Hamilton, Halton, Niagara and Southwestern Ontario.